Community supported open hardware computers for makers

Weekend at Boris’

It has been a busy week for BeagleBoard.org, which has now been around for five years!
Drew Fustini of
Element14 was nice enough to bring cake to the Southeast Michigan Friends of
Boris (the Beagle) meet-up. A notable point of discussion was the
fact that BeagleBoard.org got its name from Gerald’s dog Jake, but yet the
cartoon mascot for BeagleBoard.org was named ‘Boris’ by Philip who paid to get
the logo created. Seems like it is the little things that give character
to a community.

Drew was hanging around to record some tutorials from the hands-on workshops
on BeagleBone Black at Maker Faire Detroit. We estimate about 100 people
went through the self-paced tutorials with help from Drew and volunteers
from the local i3 Detroit hackerspace.
The videos for the tutorials will eventually be posted at
http://beagleboard.org/makerfairedetroit2013.

presented at the Faire with his Beagle in a Buzz Lightyear lunch box. I met
Phil at Maker Faire a couple of years back and he’s been doing some amazing
things to teach people about computer security. As Dale mentions, Phil is a
great example of what can be done when the open source software world meets
the world of affordable open source hardware.

Another award winning project of note wasJeff McAlvay’sopen
hardware pick-and-place machine that runsNode.JS
on BeagleBone to process design files into GCode, providing for independent
network-based operation. A pick-and-place machine will help you manufacture
electronics by taking the tiny components and positioning them on the board
for you. The machine in development is seeking to do a lot more than just
place the components, including cutting out the routes on the board and adding
the solder to it as well.